


The Couch Trip (or Sofa So Good)

by HYPERFocused



Category: Sports Night
Genre: M/M, Napping, Psychologists & Psychiatrists, Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-11
Updated: 2006-12-11
Packaged: 2017-11-29 02:17:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/681581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HYPERFocused/pseuds/HYPERFocused
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes Casey thinks about Dan on the couch. Open and vulnerable and truly himself in a way he maybe never has let himself be with Casey.</p><p>He wonders what Dan says to her, tells her about them, about himself. Casey doesn't ask; it's Dan's story to tell, Casey thinks he will.</p><p>Dan is a lot braver than Casey. Casey can't even tell Dan, his best friend, how he really feels about him. Not even when he thinks Dan probably feels the same way.</p><p>And if he can't tell Dan, he certainly couldn't tell a shrink. McCalls don't do therapy. They do 'stoic'. They put on bland, brave faces and hide trouble under smooth facades and feckless charm.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Couch Trip (or Sofa So Good)

**Author's Note:**

> Written as commentfic for [](http://amireal.livejournal.com/profile)[**amireal**](http://amireal.livejournal.com/)'s [Nap Challenge](http://amireal.livejournal.com/470224.html).

Sometimes Casey thinks about Dan on the couch. Open and vulnerable and truly himself in a way he maybe never has let himself be with Casey.

He wonders what Dan says to her, tells her about them, about himself. Casey doesn't ask; it's Dan's story to tell, Casey thinks he will.

Dan is a lot braver than Casey. Casey can't even tell Dan, his best friend, how he really feels about him. Not even when he thinks Dan probably feels the same way.

And if he can't tell Dan, he certainly couldn't tell a shrink. McCalls don't do therapy. They do 'stoic'. They put on bland, brave faces and hide trouble under smooth facades and feckless charm.

Maybe there isn't a couch. Maybe it's a chair, or maybe Dan paces while he talks, the way he sometimes does when they're trying to write and the words aren't coming.

Leave it to Dan to find a therapist -- a babe, as Dan described her, not that it should matter, but it's just Dan's kind of luck-- at a bar .She probably doesn't smoke a pipe or have a beard, either.

However it works, Casey hopes it does work. Dan comes back brittle and drained and so raw from his "afternoons off" that he's a bear to work with until he unwinds.

Dan always apologizes before crashing on the lumpy sofa in their shared office. "Just for a little while, okay? You can wake me up if you need to." Casey never needs to.

He uses the time unwisely, at least as far as Isaac or Dana would think, except that they love Dan, too. He should be writing, or at least organizing their notes so they can get back into the swing of it when it's time to wake Dan up. Instead he watches Dan's restless sleep. Dan may not be up and walking, but he's pacing under the skin.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Casey always asks him, once Dan is awake and back to semi-normal. Dan shakes his head, but sometimes there's a pause, like he's weighing his options.

"Well, when you do, I'll be there," Casey tells him. They've had this interchange so often Casey hardly needs to be there for it.

It's an epiphany, figuring out he's just as tired as Dan. Tired of keeping his feelings in check. Denial is exhausting, and so is the act of maintaining a persona that isn't fully him.

He wants to do more, and one day he does. Gathering up his own courage, his own need to unburden himself, Casey guides him into his - Dan's? -- rarely used office.The one with real walls, and a deep, comfortable sofa that they really should have moved to the space they usually use, but Casey's glad now that they haven't.

"I'm only crashing for a little while. I was fine on the Couch from Hell."

Casey can hear the capitals in Dan's voice. "You were cramped and uncomfortable, and you wake up cranky."

"That's got nothing to do with the furniture."

"I know. That's why we're here."

Dan looked around. "Where are we?"

"My office, I think. Or maybe it's yours."

"They gave you the cool sofa," Dan said, settling into it. "Probably as a consolation for not being cool yourself."

"You're cool enough for the both of us," Casey answers. He'll give Dan the cool points this time.

"Really, though. Why this office, today?"

"I'm tired," Casey admits, finally. "Watching you become yourself, when I can't even..."

"What can't you do, Casey?" Casey still can't quite say it, but maybe he can show it, instead.

"See, the thing I like about this sofa..."

"Besides the fine Corinthian leather?" Dan rolls his Rs like someone who's seen far too many episodes of Fantasy Island as a kid. "What is Corinthian leather anyway?"

"I don't know, Dan. Why don't you look it up, later?" Casey guides him back to their discussion. "No, the thing I like about it, is," he kicks off his shoes, revealing a sock with a hole in the toe, just as imperfect as he is, "there's room enough for two."

"Only if we stick close," Dan says, pulling Casey in for greatest comfort. 'I'll set my watch alarm for an hour." Dan slips into sleep in minutes, and Casey can feel his own muscles loosening.

It isn't how he imagined sleeping with Dan, their first time. But there's plenty of time for more comfortable surroundings, fewer clothes, and less actual sleep.


End file.
